River City Promenade

location

Sacramento, CA

client

Sac Catalyst Capitol Mall Competition (2nd place winner)

role

Urban design, graphic production and layout

team

Geoffrey Barton, Virginia Alexander, Darryl Jones

year

2011

The Sac Catalyst Competition received almost 50 entries worldwide to re-envision the Capitol Mall corridor of downtown Sacramento, an eight block civic boulevard with a wide grassy median but not much pedestrian activity.

Our proposal brings people back to the Mall with three principles in mind: to activate the edges of the mall, frame the view of the Capitol, and to direct visitors down a path from the river to the civic center.

A sequence of different pedestrian zones create a procession of views and experiences from natural to higher order. Strategies to activate the space include removing a lane of traffic in each direction, removing curbs, encouraging food trucks and other periodic events, and infilling buildings to create a better street edge. As the city lacks funds to implement large projects, each component of the Promenade plan can be implemented separately until the final space is realized.